h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Always nice to learn something from a Guide entry. This one seems destined to mislead future interstellar visitors, though, in that it only explains "widget" in the context of a single field. Surely, it is a term of art in many others?

For starters, in Windows software development (yes, I know it's a nasty job, but someone has to do it) the term "widget" refers to any small chunk of on-screen functionality that's bigger than a control but smaller than an entire window (say, the table widget inside a relationships designer or a palette within a drawing program).

What other widgets are out there?

I always thought that a widget was a made-up product exclusively used as an example in introductory economics textbooks (e.g. Company A can manufacture 2000 widgets at $5 per unit. The current market price for widgets is $4...). This always seemed like another vain attempt by economists prove that they do indeed have a sense of humor by using such a silly name.

Well I guess you could say those little brushs attached to a cap thingies on White-Out. What do you call it? Brushcap? Capbrush? I need to know!

In a car engine, the widget is slightly below and to the left of the wurglesprocket; both are sited close to the Point of Greatest Inaccessibility.

Lil

I believe a "Widget" was the technical name for the capsule used in 19th century pneumatic mail systems. I also seem to remember that there is a working pneumatic system somewhere in Eastern Europe, so perhaps that meaning of Widget is not yet obsolete. Can anyone verify this?